Striking before the Iron Is Hot

It’s never too early to start planning an Eagle court of honor. In fact, Laszlo Acs starts before a Scout’s board of review ends!

How? He makes good use of the time that he and the Scout’s parents are cooling their heels while board members are grilling the Scout. After reassuring the parents that the Scout will almost survive his grilling, Acs talks about how big a deal the court of honor is and what the family’s role in planning will be. He loans them his copy of The Eagle Court of Honor Book and tells them what other resources he has available (such as electronic copies of every script he’s ever put together).

Then, several weeks before the court of honor, he meets with the honoree and his parents to determine what elements they want to include in the ceremony and who they want to have involved. After that, he works with the patrol leaders’ council to pull the ceremony together. As he explained in an email, “This process relieves me of the burden of creatively coming up with something meaningful and special, keeps me from getting in a rut, and provides both leadership and service opportunities for the entire troop to be involved in the Eagle court planning process (as well as its execution).”